...
Yes, I know...I have been a VERY bad blogger. SO here are my excuses and everything in between!
1. Work became really busy. I mean REALLY busy...
2. I went to the UK!!!! in July.
Here are the pictures:
the British Museum
Spent the whole day here and still didn't get to see everything...
The weather was fantastic during my whole stay in London!
the feet of a buddha
After the British Museum, I went to a lovely antiquarian bookseller...
and bought:
a 1871 edition of the Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens
and a 1911 edition of Intentions by Oscar Wilde
the red book on the left is a recent buy.
It is a reproduction (facsimile) of the 1911 first edition of
The Concise Oxford Dictionary
published to commemorate the 100th anniversary.
It looks fabulous with the old books that I have.
The inside of the Tate Modern Museum
I spent at least 5 hours here!
London old and new.
Keble College in Oxford. The dining hall.
The dorm room I stayed in at Keble College.
I wonder who is staying there now.
I left a copy of Haruki Murakami's "Kafka on the Shore" on the bookshelf.
I had so much fun in the UK.
It was only a few weeks later that the riots in London started and that made me very sad...
3. In August I went to Okinawa:
and saw people dancing in the streets.
Visited Shuri Castle on my day off and found
an interesting looking spigot!
4. At the end of August I had a few days of vacation and visited Nagasaki. Found a very interesting structure:
that turned out to be a very long slide!
...
5. I also went to two other Prefectures in Japan (sorry no pictures) and of course Tokyo again...all for work...
But a few things arrived in the mail that reminded me of the blogging world...
first it was :
the author Lisa's bloodspot blog is here:
Finally going to start reading this now!
Which reminded me I have to write a blog on this wonderful series
but I might just wait till her new book arrives!
In the meantime check out the author's blog here:
And then IT came...
If you are a longtime blogger fan then she needs no introduction...
Tess the author of the Life at Willow Manor blog has published her first booklet of poems.
I said I would buy it if she published it and I have. It arrived safely here in Japan just a few weeks ago. I used to love poems but drifted away not being able to find anything new that resonated...but Patina (as is the Willow Manor blog) is filled with poems that are lovely to read out loud and lovely to read silently just like a short story.
I looked up Patina in my brand new First Edition Concise Oxford Dictionary and it says,
"Patina: Incrustation, usu. green, on surface of old bronze, esteemed as ornament. "
Hello again. I think I am back at blogging!
